It used to be the norm for people to download data from Tableau then check it against formulas they kept in Excel. People are now more trusting of data visualizations (i.e. dashboards) but from time to time, they fall back to their old ways of checking the calcs, and they feel more comfortable doing that in Excel. (People in finance).
Rather than fight against that tendency we show our clients a few things that help them trust dashboards. We build out QA sheets, which comes from our preferred method of building calculations ‘in the sheets.’ This method breaks apart the calculation into the components of the overall calculation. That way, people who are so inclined can follow through on the math, the same way they would in an Excel File, but via the convenience of Tableau.
With the rapid advancements in AI and MachineLearning, data visualization will become even more powerful and immersive, offering unprecedented levels of customization and ever more-effective decisioning capabilities. It will seem easy than ever to engage with data, especially as we’re all getting more comfortable in using ML/AI tools to power daily decisioning.
That’s when our very human urge to verify data comes in. We shouldn’t discount that urge. We should validate it, and make doing so easy.